Evil Is As Evil Does
by treacle-antlers
Summary: (BtVSAtS: Post The Killer In MeHabeus Corpses) A day-trip to L.A and some advice from a most unlikely source might be just what Buffy needs to sort out her feelings COMPLETE
1. You Have That Whole Garbo Thing Going On

****_Part 1: That Whole Garbo Thing Going On_

__Looking around, Buffy decided that it was just the type of bar her Mother had always warned her about. Gloomy, airless and full of dim little corners, it was the sort of place be-suited business types spent their lunch hour getting slowly and belligerently drunk before propositioning you in the most offensive way possible. In short, it was exactly what she was looking for.  
  
"Can you make a decent margarita?"  
  
The handsome, green-eyed young man behind the bar eyed her lazily, before leaning down to rest his elbows on the countertop in front of her. Looking back at him, she imagined that the warm, open-hearted smile he offered her had probably convinced a multitude of young girls before her to bear their souls to him. Followed no doubt, by the rest of their bodies. But then, Buffy was no ordinary young girl.  
  
"Save it for someone who cares. Just don't skimp on the tequila."  
  
Ignoring his petulant scowl, she let her eyes drift around the rest of the room. Nothing even remotely otherworldy, just a couple of drowsy drunks and one fidgety couple who were obviously having an affair. The girl's gaze skipped nervously about, locking briefly with her own before dropping with an unmistakably guilty air, aware that her sin had been noticed. Uncomfortable, Buffy squinted in her direction for second longer, hoping she might think she was short-sighted, but the young woman had already turned to hide her face.  
  
"There you go."  
  
The salt-rimed cocktail slid expertly to a stop right under her nose, and she turned back to face it. Swallowed the whole thing down in one ice-cold sour gulp and shoved it back towards him.  
  
"Just keep 'em coming."  
  
A raised eyebrow greeted her request, but he complied, refilling her glass before silently retreating to the other side of the bar. Watching him from the corner of one eye, Buffy smiled grimly but gratefully. He had the makings at least of a really good barman; knew just when to keep his mouth shut. Taking a sip of her second drink, she discarded the lime slice and the little green cactus with a irritable flick of her wrist.   
  
Frills.   
  
As she got older she found that she had less and less patience for them. They were affectations, just something put there to divert your attention away from the actual product on offer. They were...what was the word Giles had used last week when she had explained it to him? They were _'extraneous'_. It was such a British-sounding word, but then it was sort of a British ideal. A lack of decoration, of glitter and dazzle; that was Giles through and through. Honest. Straightforward. No-nonsense. Non-extraneous. It was what she appreciated these days. More than that, it was what she needed. It wasn't so much that she didn't have the patience, more that she now truly understood that time was her most precious commodity. 

And he had always been that way too, with her at least. No flowers. No frills. No pretty words, and no dressing up what needed to be said. He saw things for what they were, saw through the traps and barriers she'd always put there to protect herself, and then told her the honest truth. That none of it mattered. That they could only ever be what they were, feel whatever it was they felt. And that he loved her. 

She frowned deeply before tossing her head back to sink the last of it. Rapped the glass down with a trifle more force than she'd intended. 

"Hey! People getting thirsty over here!" 

It wasn't that she hated hearing him say it, but for so long the words on his lips had been the catalyst for everything bad. He'd said it and she'd wanted to hurt him, wanted to tear the sentiment right out of his dead heart. Because how could he, how _dare_ he say that he _loved_ her? How could a _creature _like him know her, or profess to understand her needs so completely? Because if he did, if he was truly her perfect match, then what did that make her? What kind of person could want him, a cold-blooded monster who'd feasted on the blood of thousands? She'd always touched that darkness, but she was never, could never be a part of it. She had to stay within the light, because the alternative...the alternative was unthinkable. 

The third one tasted sweeter, but maybe it's friends had killed off some of her tastebuds. Either way it went down smoother and faster than the others, so fast that green-eyes didn't even have time to vacate his spot before he was topping her up again. He smiled, more tentatively this time and she half smiled back. Focused. Tried again. Full Buffy smile, all the teeth. Hey and...suddenly? He wasn't looking like such an asshole anymore. 

"Don't even think about it." 

She started violently at the sudden nearness of another voice, but the woman only smiled wryly at her, sliding gracefully onto the next stool and indicating the young barman in the same movement. 

"The label may say Imported, but I can assure you he screws like Domestic." 

Her hand moved smoothly to take a paper napkin from the holder, dropping it to soak up the cloudy pool of margarita she hadn't even realised she'd spilled. 

"I'm sorry about that. Why don't you let me get you another?" 

Something about her made Buffy want to say no, although it seemed pointlessly rude to refuse a perfectly innocent act of courtesy. The woman had barely even looked her way as she made the offer, eyes drifting aimlessly much as her own had a few minutes before to appraise the clientele in the place. Tracking her line of sight, she noticed her interest pique for a moment as she spied the couple huddling in the corner shadows. Her lips twitched, 

"She's probably terrified someone from her office is going to walk in." 

She turned to accept the unordered drink the bar man had brought her with a gracious smile, and raising it to her mouth, tasted it. Rolled her tongue back and forth, savouring the flavours, before tasting it again. 

Something about her was odd, that was for sure, but it wasn't any something Buffy could put her finger on. Maybe it was simply her cool confidence, the ultra-feminine poise of her that put her on edge. Women like that had always done something to her self esteem, made her feel instantly so much less like a powerful Chosen Warrior and more like a short, twenty-two year old college drop-out with too many split ends and a blossoming career in the fast-food industry. Watching her drink, all the age-old insecurities tugged at her again, but for once she felt the need to face them down. 

She was just a woman after all, only a little older and, she told herself firmly, not nearly as cute, blonde and tanned as her. She was trying to be friendly, maybe feeling as weary of the world of men as she was, and there was really no reason to feel intimidated by her just because she was wearing a watch she knew for certain cost the equivalent of three years of her salary. 

"Do you know her?" 

Buffy's attention snapped back from the couple, met her gaze full on, and fumbled. 

"Do I...? No, I mean....she isn't, I don't even live in Los Angeles." 

She almost blushed; _God, how hick had that sounded? _Cleared her throat and corrected herself, 

"In L.A, I mean. I don't live here. I used to, but we...ah...we moved away." 

"Right..." 

She turned away. 

_Right?_ What did that mean? _Right;_ like oh right, you look like the kind of girl who couldn't cut it in the big city? _Right;_ like she was obviously just some small-town floozy an outing to the bright lights? Tossing her hair back to allow the golden waves to fall down attractively over bronzed shoulders, she gave the other woman her most dazzling and confident smile, crossing one leg over the other in almost unconscious mimicry. 

"I mean I love the city, don't get me wrong. But L.A is so...." 

she waved hand dismissively, a small brittle Cordelia-type laugh, 

"It's so _eighties_, you know?" 

Giving a nod, her companion's lips twitched upward in brief smile before turning her attention back to her drink again. 

"I'm surprised you're old enough to remember." 

Refilling her drink for the fourth time, Buffy's eyes met curiously with the barman's for a moment before her brain back-tracked. She frowned, unsure if she was irritated or flattered. 

"Hey!! I had _all_ the Care Bears, including that...one with...the cloud thing that everyone wanted for some reason. _And _an E.T lunchbox, before anyone else in my class had even seen the movie." 

She lifted her chin, 

"_And_ I saw '_New Kids On The Block'_...five...no...six times. Live!! And I _still _ have my scarf." 

Staring back at her, the woman gave her a long ice-cool look, before quirking one eyebrow upwards. 

"Was it Jordan or Donnie though?" 

Buffy's widened into saucers, before she got the joke. Raised her eyebrows in an echo, 

"Are you _kidding_? That Donnie was _fine_." 

They laughed, and she noticed that the other woman's sounded rusty, as if she hadn't used it in a long while. As if she hadn't had a lot to laugh about. 

"I'm Buffy." 

She held out her hand and was granted a lop-sided smile in return, maybe just at her old fashioned gesture. Maybe at her name. She nodded, touching fingertips to her's in only the briefest of gestures. 

"Lilah." 

Then, after holding her gaze for another long second, she moved silently back to her drink again as if they had never spoken. 

Watching her, Buffy noted the subtle but unmistakable snub. The woman seemed to have all the attributes of a successful, confidence woman; the watch, the suit, the immaculate hair and nails, but she was a fraud like so many others. The merest possibility of connecting with someone else had sent her back behind an impenetrable wall and, despite her coldness and the completely successful bitch-queen-from-hell vibe she was throwing out, she couldn't help but feel empathy. 

"Is something a matter?" 

The slight dismissive movement of her head Buffy guessed was meant to communicate her answer, but then she had gotten so much better at reading negative body language since getting involved with Spike. The tiny shift of his jaw when he was angry but trying not to show it, the way he dropped his head as he held back a snarky comment. Sometimes she thought she could tell exactly how he was feeling just from the angle of his shoulder blades. Getting him to open up though, since he'd got his soul back? That was like trying to find her house keys when they'd slipped right down to the bottom of her bag. 

"Did you try talking about it?" 

Lilah's eyes flitted to her own, heavy with a mixture of scorn and disgust. 

"Sure, but my jaw keeps getting tired." 

Her expression was studied, as near perfect a performance as was possible and Buffy couldn't help admiring her skill, wondering how long had it taken her to erect such an imposing barricade. The bitch-queen thing _was_ getting pretty tedious though. 

"Maybe should try thinking about what you're going to say before you say it. You'd save a lot of time that way." she suggested brightly. 

"Hey, that's _good_. Your Mother teach you that?" 

"No, it's mine. I do have one about lemons and lemonade though. You wanna hear that?" 

"Thanks Pollyanna, but I think I know it." 

She let the barman refresh her drink again, then slid off the stool and walked calmly away. Unfolding a copy of the Financial Times, she seated herself at the furthest table in the room and Buffy turned back to the bar with a sigh. 

Awww crap. Now she was alone again, with her thoughts. Just what she really didn't need today. 

It wasn't that she felt any kind of deep connection with her, or even that she believed particularly strongly in that whole female solidarity crap, but other peoples' problems were far easier to think about than her own_. _That was one of the great things about being a counsellor_. _The kids came in full of angst and woe, feeling like their whole world was collapsing, and she could_ help_. She could tell them that their worries weren't unusual, that their questions had answers, and then she could tell them what she might have done in a similar situation. But who could do that for her? Giles tried his best to answer her, but lately his advice seemed to be growing less and less useful. Plus, without the resources of The Council to inform him, he was no longer his old almanac-self on all subjects demon. The Scoobies and the Potentials obviously valued his seniority in a crisis, but if there was one thing her lifetime of experience had taught her it was that, inevitably, she was the one they would all turn to. 

And then there was Spike, and he never spoke of needing her. He used phrases like;_ 'with you by my side' and 'we can do this together'_ and he never demanded anything. Not any more. Sometimes when they talked, in the evenings, in the quiet solitude of the basement when the house above them was in chaos, she thought that she felt almost perfectly content. There was a stillness to him now that after only a few minutes in his company, transmitted itself to her. Her breathing slowing, the almost constant migraine she carried in her temples evaporating like smoke, as she listened to his voice; telling her about the book he was reading, about something Giles had said, what the Potentials had been up to that day, how Amanda's natural swordsmanship was incredible. After a while their bodies would relax back against the wall, into the mattress of his cot, and sometimes she even allowed their thighs to touch. 

She knew what was happening to them. She just didn't know what she was going to do about it. 

"And have _you_ tried talking about it?" 

And suddenly she was back, on the pretence of refreshing her drink again, but they both knew she hadn't really had time to finish it. Her eyes were still harder than granite but there was something else there, something that flickered at the edges that she recognised. Pride and need. A combination she understood only too well. She shrugged, moving her knee aside to make room for her again. 

"There's not much to say. As problems go, it's pretty run of the mill stuff." 

"Does it explain what you're doing in a place like this?" 

Their eyes drifted round to take in their surroundings a second time and Buffy allowed herself a wry smile. 

"I guess I thought I _'vanted to be alone'_ you know," she spared a look at her companion who had seated herself again, albeit temporarily, "But maybe I don't after all." 

She shrugged again, 

"It's tough having to think about stuff. I think I'd rather just...not." 

"Stuff being a guy?" 

"Oooh yeah." 

And they shared a knowing smile. Maybe the female solidarity thing wasn't such crap after all. Nodding slightly, the other woman twisted the stem of her glass silently between perfectly manicured fingernails. Obviously she wasn't much for conversation. Buffy cleared her throat, willing to be the one to start. 

"I guess..." she made a gesture with one hand, realising as she did how drunk she already was, "I guess I'm just trying to figure out how I feel." 

The woman, Lilah, gave a small laugh, 

"You know how you feel, believe me." 

"I do?" 

She nodded once, decisively at her, 

"You do." 

Relieved to be able to admit it out loud, she let her lungs empty out in a long sigh. 

"Yeah. I guess I do." 

Lilah took a sip of her drink, nodded again. 

"You just have to figure how you're going to tell everyone." 

And that was a whole lot further than she wanted to go in this whole internal confronting the shitstorm of her personal life. A whole load of conversations she didn't even want to imagine. Least of all the first one, the one she would have to have with him. 

"It's complicated." 

That pretty much summed it up. 

"Complicated why?" 

_Because he was evil. _

_Because now he isn't. _

_Because my sister wants to set him on fire. _

_Because Xander will probably never speak to me again. _

_Because Giles will never forgive me, not really._

_Because Willow will give me that look, but her lips will say 'that's great Buffy, I'm so happy for you.' _

_Because he tried to rape me_. 

_Because he's a monster, a killer and a murderer_,_ and the things he's done to little children, oh **Christ**...to peoples' Mothers and Fathers, to hundreds and thousands of girls and women and families and homes and lives._

_Because of seeing him burning on that cross._

_Because he's not that person any more._

_And because I'm in love with him._

__She shrugged,__

__"It just is."__

__"It always is."__

__Swallowing the last of her drink, Buffyrested a hand lightly over the rim of her glassto delay the refill that was probably inevitable and sighed again. This time in defeat. Her shoulders slumped, 

"He used to be evil." 

To her confusion Lilah only smiled, raising her eyebrows briefly in acknowledgement. She rolled the contents of her drink around in the glass.__

__"Really? Like the 'no soul' kind of evil? Or just the plain old he-shot-my-dog vanilla kind?"__

__Eyeing her with suspicion, Buffy swatted the barman away as he attempted to circumvent her hand.__

__"You know about evil?"__

__Lilah gave a casual shrug, 

"A little. I'm sort of in the business." 

Buffy blinkedat her uncertainly, until she clarified; 

"I'm a _lawyer_, sweetie." 

"Oh. Right." 

For a moment she'd thought that she might be serious, but it was just another one of those jokes that people like her told. Like_; 'how many people does it take to put out a burning lawyer...'_ She couldn't remember the punchline, but she remembered laughing as if she'd found it funny when she really didn't. For some reason jokes about the nature of human evil always failed to tickle The Slayer's funny bone. 

"So what...you're saying you're _evil_?" 

"It's a necessary requirement. Right above duplicity and amorality. Although the latter usually comes as a bonus to the whole..." she raised an eyebrow conspiratorially, "you know...the whole being evil." 

She was funny, she'd give her that. But funny in a way that was almost always guaranteed to piss Buffy off, and she felt irritation finally begin to cut through her need for company. 

"You know, you really shouldn't make jokes about that kind of thing." 

The woman blinked rapidly for second as if she hadn't understood her, and then slowly a wide smile of dawning recognition began to spread across her face. 

"Oh, I'm sorry. You weren't kidding _were you?"_

With a weary sigh, Buffy summoned the barman back over with a flick of the head. Being alone suddenly didn't seem so bad after all, the last thing she felt like doing on her first day off in six months was giving a lesson in the reality of Evil to a newbie. 

"Just forget I said anything." 

Undeterred, the woman leant forward, a faint smile on her lips. 

"So let me get this straight. This guy you're in love with, he's what...a demon or something?" 

Rounding on her with her last shred of patience, Buffy met her eyes with a deeply ironic smile, 

"And what would you know about demons?" 

Lilah laughed, tipped her glass back to empty the last drops before sliding it forward for another refill. 

"Oh you'd be surprised, girlfriend. I can almost _guarantee_ you'd be surprised." 


	2. Hope Is A Four Letter Word

Smiling slyly, Lilah reached into her elegantly understated purse and withdrew an equally chic and exquisitely designed wallet. 

"I'll tell you what. How about I buy us both a bottle of the good stuff, and then you can tell me all about it." 

Her eyes sparkled with something like mischief as she beckoned the barman over with a folded hundred, 

"You look to me like a girl who appreciates quality." 

Before Buffy could even formulate a polite rejection, a shot glass full of suspiciously golden fluid was placed in front of her. As the scent of it reached her nose, she felt her stomach muscles flex in rebellion. 

"Oh...God. No. I mean...thank you." 

She pushed the drink away with a nauseous grimace. Frowning slightly, Lilah pushed it back. 

"Hey, come on! You said you wanted to talk sister, well this is the price of my company. I hate to drink alone." 

Tossing back her hair she lifted the glass and, rolling it smoothly across her face, first from one cheekbone to the other then to her lips, she downed it in one. Unable to stop herself, Buffy let out a loud and incredulous laugh. 

"Oh my God! Where did you learn to _do_ that?" 

Licking the tequila from her lips, Lilah reached for the bottle again before replying. 

"My sophomore year at Harvard," 

She grinned darkly as she pushed back the long sleek curtain of her hair with one hand. 

"Hence the less than feminine college nickname of 'shooter'." 

She shrugged, drawing the next shot in through her lips like it was nectar. 

"I suppose it was better than concentrating on my other skills." 

Off Buffy's look she smiled again, before leaning in for a conspiratorial whisper, 

"I was kind of a slut." 

"Oh." 

Raising her eyebrows, the younger woman appraised her stylish and conservative appearance before responding, 

"Well, if it's any consolation, I wasn't - a slut I mean - and now, looking back?" 

She frowned, 

"I kinda wish I _had_ been a little more..." 

"Whorish?" 

Lilah's interjection was flavoured with an odd kind of glee, and squinting sideways at her, Buffy felt the corners of her mouth twisting themselves upwards into a smile. 

"No..." 

She tapped at the rim of her shot glass with one fingernail, distracted for a moment by the brilliant gold colour of the liquid swirling inside. 

"Maybe just a little...free-er with my affections. Not so much with the serious relationship thing." 

Lilah nodded slowly, and Buffy found herself smiling again at the unlikely sound of a high-powered career woman sucking hard liquor through her teeth. She frowned, reminiscing. 

"Maybe there was a middle ground I could have struck. Perhaps there was a halfway mark in there somewhere - between vestal virgin and...ho. You know?" 

The other woman inclined her head, 

"You are what you are I guess. A man is attracted to you or he isn't. Making yourself into some kind of fantasy girl, a hybrid of everything you think might turn them on? That's playing their game not your's." 

Her voice wavered for a moment, and she frowned, playing with her tumbler to cover the sound, tilting it forward into the light. 

"Besides, I think you might be overestimating them. Seems to me they want a woman to be either one thing or the other. And whichever one they choose, they're always going to be wondering what they missed out on." 

Studying her over the rim of her glass, Buffy thought she saw her eyes flicker for a moment with an emotion that may or may not have been regret, before the chin came up once more and she flashed a sharp-edged smile. 

"I guess there's no real way to win." 

For the first time since they had started to talk the two women shared a look of genuine understanding, and almost despite her better judgement, Buffy found herself warming to her companion. 

Besides, she reasoned, it was wrong to refuse free alcohol when funds at home were so limited. Accepting charity was something she had had to start getting used to and, steeling herself, she tipped the warm golden liquid into the well beneath her tongue where she knew it was least likely to make her vomit. 

Leaking to the back of her throat the expensive tequila tasted surprisingly good though and far less like battery acid than she remembered. She closed her eyes momentarily as she let it slide down. 

Why did tequila always remind her of Spike? 

"So was he worth it?" 

Lilah was watching her with a small smile of enjoyment on her lips and, collecting herself, Buffy tried to think where the conversation had been heading before she'd lost herself in warm alcohol drenched memories. 

"I'm sorry...was who...what?" 

The woman shook her head, raising an eyebrow, 

"So you don't even remember his name? This other guy you gave up the better part of your wild oats for?" 

Her voice was soft and cultured with barely a trace of an accent, and Buffy found herself wondering if a woman as self-possessed and confident as she was had ever had any real problems with men. From just the little she had gleaned so far, Lilah didn't seem like the kind of person who had ever let her heart rule her head. She smiled noncommittally at her question, not wanting to go there but feeling the need to clarify the background details. 

"He left. Before him there was another guy. Also serious." 

She took another sip of her drink before meeting the other woman's eyes again. 

"But yes, he was special. They were both pretty special. But would I change anything that happened now, if I could?" 

She shrugged. 

"I don't know. I don't think so. I think I learned a lot. They both taught me a lot about myself. About what I'm capable of. And I kind of think the pain made me what I am. In the end I think it made me stronger." 

Lilah's full-throated barking laugh startled her as she leaned in, half covering a smile with a hand before apologising. 

"I'm sorry, I don't mean to be a bitch, but God, have you listened to yourself? _'In the end they made me stronger'?_ You talk like your life's already over." 

Somehow Buffy resisted the impulse to set her straight, managed a weak smile instead. 

"I just know I'll never be that girl again." 

Noting her tone Lilah nodded slowly, before tilting the bottle to refill her glass. 

"Believe me sweetie, there's always enough time left for mistakes. And for pain" 

Reaching down she rubbed the back of her calf with one hand, before stretching to remove one elegant high heeled shoe. 

"I think you'd be better off spending a little less time thinking about the past and concentrate on what you have." 

It was a platitude she'd heard a million time before, but for once Buffy felt the real implication of the words. The truth was that she had no future, and no amount of tequila and sympathy was going to change that. What she did have was a present and, with a frown, she flashed back to the night before, the couch in the front room. Spike's face as he sat sideways on to her, hands laced on his knees in a horribly casual gesture of calm collected resolve as he told her in low resigned tones that he had to leave. That he should go for the sake of all of them. 

And then she'd seen the tremor. 

As his voice had been doing the sensible thing, telling her he was strong, playing the grown-up to her chaotic emotional teen, his hands had been shaking. Almost imperceptibly but uncontrollably, and she suddenly understood that the seemingly relaxed pose was just him trying to stop her from seeing it. 

He was so afraid. 

Not so much of her inevitable death, but of her complete acceptance of it. 

"And this new guy? How does he fit into this fascinating pattern of self-loathing you have going?" 

Buffy's head rolled to one side, and she brought a hand up to her neck to massage away some of the tension that seemed her ever-present friend these days. 

"Oh no. I think it's your turn. You haven't said much about the source of your need to..." 

She gestured at the already half empty bottle, and almost did a double-take before she remembered that the other woman had been refilling her glass regularly the whole time they had been talking. Lilah gave a small awkward laugh. 

"Not too much to tell. I've been seeing this...man for while." 

She laughed again, shaking her head a little. 

"_So_ not my usual type. I mean, I can appreciate a fine Bordeaux as well as the next person, but I guess I'll always be a Bud and beer nuts kind of gal at heart. A hot body, good face and save the conversation." 

Her lips twisted into a half-hearted smile, 

"But there was something about him. Something...I don't know...something just lit him up from inside. He's so..." she blinked, seemingly in surprise at the thought. "He makes everyone else seem like they're half asleep." 

Dropping her head, she stared down into her drink. 

"Maybe that's what I want." 

Lilah nodded slowly, a small movement. 

"Just to be _alive_, in the way that he's alive. When I'm with him, I feel like maybe I want to be." 

She drew in a breath, cocking her head slightly, and when she spoke again it was as if the woman she'd been a moment before had been swiftly and unceremoniously evicted. 

"But hey, who the hell am I kidding right? The stuff I've done?" 

A laugh, devoid of anything approaching warmth. 

"Any kind of life is a little more than I deserve." 

Watching her now firmly closed body language, it was obvious Lilah felt that she had shared enough and Buffy restrained the desire to ask the question that so obviously followed her last words. Whatever she'd done, it was clear to her that the other woman was already struggling with her conscience. Tipping her glass back, Lilah emptied it a third time and then turned back to her. 

"So what about you? What's so complicated about your's?" 

"Ah." Buffy rolled her eyes, "Where do I start? He's..." 

Her brow furrowed in a half scowl of frustration, as she searched for exactly the right phrase to describe the smouldering wreckage that was her relationship with Spike. 

"Let's just say things between us have been pretty bad." 

Lilah nodded solemnly, taking it in. 

"But have they ever been good?" 

Now there was the question. And the answer was one she hadn't cared, hadn't dared to tell anyone, except perhaps for that guy Webs - the one she'd dusted that night. 

"We had our moments." 

Her shoulder came up in an unconsciously defensive movement, a hand to her face to brush away hair. 

"But mostly..." 

She closed her eyes briefly, painful memories, before opening them again. 

"Mostly it was just ugly. We hurt each other. A lot. I hated the way I was when I was with him. And I hated myself for wanting him." 

She shrugged, fingers distractedly tearing at the napkin under her hand. 

"It was a whole big hate-fest." 

Lilah's expression darkened a fraction, and she took another measured sip of her drink. 

"But you kept going back for more." 

Buffy's eyes flashed to her, looking for the pity and disgust she knew had to be there, but the older woman's gaze was relaxed, interested. She glanced away sharply as a pair of young suited business men entered the bar laughing, and then seemed to relax again. 

"What was it made you go back?" 

_Shame._

_Disgust._

_Lust._

_Pain._

_Loneliness_

_Curiosity.._

_All of the above._

"I suppose..." 

And then realised that she wasn't being honest with herself. He at least deserved her honesty. 

"When I was with him I felt something I'd never felt before. He made me feel free." 

"Free to what?" 

Her shoulders dropped a little. The truth was sometimes difficult to admit. 

"Free to let go. I could be whatever I wanted with him, say whatever I wanted. Before...it was always different. Both the other guys...I thought I'd shared everything with them, I thought I was being myself, opening up, but at the back of everything, there was always this place, you know?" 

She searched for affirmation in the other woman's eyes, 

"Like I was afraid to let them see the real me. Afraid they'd be...I don't know...disappointed." 

"And he wasn't disappointed?" 

Buffy flinched at the flash frame that burst against the back of her eyes. 

_Spike's face, radiant and flushed with blood, his eyes blazing azure blue and his lips parted, pinkly-soft, as she writhed and bucked astride his hips. Pale chest livid with the half-moon scars her nails had made._

"No." 

She took a swallow of tequila and rinsed it round the inside of her mouth. 

"He wasn't even surprised. He knew what was inside me better than I did I guess." 

"Really?" 

Lilah's voice was soft, and as she bent forward to pull their bottle closer to her, Buffy realised that she had started to slump way too far forward over the bar and quickly righted herself. The other woman's eyes still appeared remarkably clear, her smile back in place and still as sardonic, sharp and red-lipped as it had been the first moment she sat down. And frowning at her, Buffy suddenly remembered where the whole conversation had been heading just before this smart, hard-drinking career woman has plied her with sweet tasting alcoholic goodness and got her thinking about Spike. 

"Hey! You...you're changing the subject!" 

Lilah's eyelashes batted, feigning a little good-humoured offence. She tilted her glass again, inspecting the contents. 

"I'm sorry, I thought you _wanted_ to talk about men." 

"No! Demons. Before, I mean. I said Sp..," 

She swallowed his name, unsure how much information she wanted to give this stranger. Started again. 

"I said that he used to be evil, and then you asked if he was a demon." 

Lilah's eyebrow made it's sharp question mark again, and Buffy's eyes narrowed. 

"And then you changed the subject. What do you know about demons?" 

Rolling her head back on a slender neck, the older woman appeared to be formulating an answer to a question far more complicated than the one she'd asked. Her smile was ever-present, a bright-red symbol of her affected ambivalence to everything around her, but when she finally faced her again her eyes were suddenly colder and darker than the LA winter's night outside. 

"When I was twelve years old my Father died." 

Her head slipped to one side, the curtain of hair that she had tucked behind one ear sliding to cover her face in shadow. Her smile, now half hidden, twisted into a grin. 

"And I was glad." 

The coldness of her words didn't altogether surprise Buffy, but her tone was unsettling. Her voice far beyond emotional pain. Lilah flashed a glance at her, watching for her reaction, but she got nothing. The Slayer had spent far too long hiding her feelings from people to be goaded into an overemotional response 

"Why?" 

"Because it meant I was powerful." 

She lifted a perfectly manicured hand to rest on the bar in front of her, before lifting her glass to her lips again. Watching her wrist, Buffy couldn't help but note that her movements were smoothly calm. 

"I wished for him to die." 

The smile again, like a doll's - devoid of emotion, and now a chill began to spread through her as Lilah spoke again. 

"After I walked in on him and my little sister. I hadn't known he was home. He worked late on Tuesdays. I was coming back from the market and I heard him inside, I heard what he was telling her to do. I could smell his cigarettes through the screen." 

Her neck stretched out to one side, working out a troublesome kink. 

"When I opened the door he didn't see me, but she did. Sally did. She had these _really_ bright blue eyes. Baby-blue he used to call her." 

Shrugged, 

"He never had any pet names for me." 

Her voice hadn't changed pitch once, and Buffy could feel every nerve in her body slowly screwing itself up into fuse-wire as she listened to her soft, sing-song tone. 

"I could see...her hands were so....little. She was just a baby, but she had _polish _on her nails. This bright candy pink polish, with little flecks of silver and gold in it. But the thing I really saw? You know what the first thing I really noticed was? She was wearing _my_ charm bracelet. He'd given it to me for my tenth birthday and she was always, _always, _always asking if she could wear it. Just put it on, just wear it round the house." 

She sucked in a short breath, and then a glass-brittle laugh burst from her lips. 

"And I remember standing there with the door handle in my hand, thinking...that little _bitch_...." 

A muscle in Buffy's jaw twitched involuntarily at the harsh sound of the word. Lilah pushed back her hair, and turned to face her again, eyes shining wet. 

"She _knew _she wasn't ever supposed to touch my stuff." 

The angles of her face were defined only by the gaudy lighting of the bar, and her expression was coloured by it, carnival colours making her pupils seem hugely black and empty. Swallowing hard, Buffy felt goosebumps break into life on the skin of her bare arms. Glancing down at them, Lilah smiled, cooly polite. 

"There's a draft here. If you're cold we could move to a table." 

Buffy shook her head, still trying to find the words she knew would sound trite, had to sound like the wrong thing. But the other woman had already turned back to her drink, the small soft smile she'd been wearing before replacing the high bright one. 

"Anyway, after that I decided he had to die And then I wished it. Every day. And after a while I knew that if I thought it long enough, if I wanted it enough, I could make it happen. I could make him just...stop living," 

She let out a breath, 

"And then...he just did." 

Dipping a long finger slowly into her tequila, she took it back to her lips and sucked it clean. 

"When I was a little older, I told my Mom about that and she cried. She that it wasn't my fault. But she didn't understand." 

"Hey..." 

Buffy stumbled, grasping for the words, needing to say something. 

"Hey...every kid thinks bad stuff. But you didn't _make_ him die." 

Brown eyes darted quickly to her, a flash of indignant fire. 

"Oh, but I did." 

She tapped her glass, frowning. 

"I told a teacher about what he'd been doing...what he'd been doing to Sally. I was angry. I thought she'd maybe tell the cops, tell my Mom. She was a grown-up and I knew they wouldn't call her...I knew they wouldn't say she'd made it up. I thought they'd come and take him away, that he'd be punished. I wanted him to be punished, I _wanted_ him to hurt." 

"Did she tell anyone?" 

The young woman's smile widened, a cold slow drawing out of the lips. 

"No. She never said a word. She just listened to me. No one had ever listened to me like that before. Like everything I said mattered to her. She said that. She said that I was what mattered to her. That it was her job to hear me." 

She gave a small, sharp nod, 

"And then the next day he was dead." 

The knowledge of what Lilah was saying settled into her, and slowly Buffy let out a long breath and held it. The other woman nodded, affirming what she already knew without asking the question. 

"She was a Vengeance Demon. She told me that of course, but I wasn't altogether sure what that meant. She told me she wanted to help me and that Da...that he was a bad man, a monster. She said she'd do whatever I told her to." 

Her smile never wavered, 

"I told her that I wanted him dead. That was my wish. And the rest as they say..." 

One hand lifted in a horribly theatrical gesture. 

"Is history." 

Nausea washed through Buffy like cold water, and all she found she could do was shake her head. The words of reassurance and comfort she had been struggling to vocalise felt like ashes in her mouth now. Lilah's head came up again with a swing, hair gleaming. 

"So you asked me what I know about demons, and I told you. I know that _demons_ have power. That _evil things_ have power. And I knew that if I could use that power, that if I could find a way to always have it working for me, I could be whatever I wanted. Go wherever I wanted. Away from that house and away from a town where the best career I could ever hope for was small-town slut." 

The mock serious expression she wore made her words seem all the more ugly. 

"That's what I learnt, and that's what I know. So Buffy, why don't you tell me what you know?" 

She felt sober again. Lilah's story had sent all traces of wooziness away, replacing them with a feeling that made her want to take a long hot bath and scrub herself clean. A day away from the horrors of Sunnydale, shopping and enjoying a little quality-alone-time suddenly seemed like it had been a very bad idea. Hellmouth or no Hellmouth, it was a place she understood and, despite their history together, the small town represented something for her. An ideal she was fighting to preserve and a life she was defending on behalf of everyone on the planet. 

"OK. I'll tell you what I know." 

She tilted her head to look back at her, returning her gaze. 

"I _know_ that evil is an incredibly powerful force. And I _know _thatit's real because I've seen it, I've looked into it's eyes and I've walked in it's footsteps. I've talked to it, I've drunk with it, I've discussed politics and I've swapped dirty stories with it. Hell, I've even shared a _bed_ with it. And you know what _I_ know?" 

She leaned in and Lilah's breath felt warm on her cheek. 

"I know that _I'm_ stronger." 

The other woman's eye's widened just a fraction and Buffy thought she discerned a tiny, sharp intake of breath. Her lips opened, blood red. 

"Well, that's just inspiring." 

The sarcasm in her voice just didn't sound as convincing as it had an hour earlier, and her cool poise suddenly seemed shattered. One hand fumbling in her inside pocket for something. 

"I must say, you're a very impressive young woman. And a very interesting one." 

Distracted by someone else entering, Buffy looked away for a moment and when she turned back her companion was silently slipping off her stool. 

"Are you going?" 

"Yeah. Sorry. I'd love to stay longer but there's no rest for the...ah...." 

She gestured, offhandedly and Buffy noticed that her mobile phone, the thing she'd obviously been searching for, was in her hand, obviously waiting to be answered. An important call maybe, either way she was on the move. Away to do something's bidding. 

With a small frown Buffy reached for her arm, and turned her as she started for the door. 

"Mind if I offer _you _some advice?" 

Lilah's smile flickered for a moment, almost dying out, before she recovered 

"Ok." 

"It's your's really, but I don't think your taking it. Stop trying to convince yourself you're something that you're not." 

The mobile phone in her hand glowed briefly with an incoming text, but Lilah barely glanced at it. Buffy held her gaze, watching the emotions behind the hazel-brown eyes change and shift. 

"You think you're evil...but you're not." 

Quietly, she got to her own feet, dusted herself down. 

"This guy you say makes you feel alive, you should try and make it work. You're just human Lilah. Maybe it's time you stopped trying to prove you're not." 

The older woman's eyelids flickered downwards then, eyelashes sweeping pale cheeks. Her smile was still in place but, brushing past her and pulling on her coat, Buffy thought that maybe she was crying. 

But then again, it was always possible that she had just gotten something caught in her eye. LA, after all, could be a pretty dirty city. 

THE END 


End file.
